That was all I was planning to preorder, but then I read the preview of the first issue of Wayward, a new creator-owned series from Image by Jim Zub (Samurai Jack, Skullkickers) and Steve Cummings (Flash, Deadshot) and I was intrigued by what I read. Intrigued enough to order that too.

I arrived back in Michigan last Saturday–the first issue came out last Wednesday–and after getting settled into my apartment, I went down to my comic shop and picked up. I wasn’t disappointed; having read it through twice, I can honestly say Wayward is a great new series and I look forward to seeing where it goes.

The story, like the headline says, reads like it came straight from an anime fan’s mind. Half-Irish, half-Japanese high schooler Rori Lane, sick of living with her Irish dad, moves to Tokyo for the first time to be with her mother. Besides the usual cultural adjustment, Rori suddenly begins seeing red pathways pop up that no one else can that tell her where she needs to go. And things get even weirder when she discovers that there are monsters walking the streets of Tokyo.

One thing I can say about this first issue is that it gets to the point. While a whole opening arc could be built out of Rori adjusting to life in Japan, Zub and Cummings get right down to business. It’s refreshing and very gripping. Zub is very good at taking these characters we’ve seen a ton of times–teenager in a foreign place, workaholic mom and so on–and really making them worth knowing.

Cummings is not an artist whose work I’ve seen before, and that’s a shame because he’s great. It’s very easy to imagine his designs popping up in an anime and his work is crisp and clear. John Rauch’s coloring further enhances the book’s appealing nature. It’s lovely stuff and it’s a good touchstone to turn manga fans onto American comics.

Even cooler is that the two men–of whom Cummings actually lives in Yokohama, Japan–have enlisted the help of Japanese scholar and translator Zack Davisson to write a series of essays about “Weird Japan,” exploring the country’s deep supernatural lore, and encyclopedia entries on all the monsters Rori seems to encounter. The entry here is on kappas, and it’s thought-provoking stuff that further adds to the series’ appeal.

Bottom line: if you know someone who prefers manga over Western comics, have them check this out. It’s a great bridging point between the two styles, and it’s wonderful stuff all on its own. Image has been promoting this book by saying it’s for Buffy The Vampire Slayer fans and while I don’t fully get the comparison, I get the spirit of it and I would agree in that respect. I’ll be sticking with this for as long as it’s out there.

So like every other ’90s kid, I’ve been watching Sailor Moon Crystal, the anime that isn’t so much a remake of the beloved ’90s anime, but rather a reboot designed by Toei Animation to be more faithful to Naoko Takeuchi’s original manga. Because the series is only 26 episodes long, Toei has decided to air new episodes on a biweekly basis to sustain interest.

I say “air” even though the series is what the West knows as a webseries and what Japan knows as an Original Net Animation (ONA, derived from Original Video Animation, the term for direct-to-video anime) because the series is still very much structured like a television show. It’s two acts broken up by one commercial break, although Hulu (where I view it, although the show also airs on Crunchyroll and NicoNico, which livestream the premiere of every episode), adds more commercials because it’s Hulu’s way, and every episode thus far has been rather self-contained. The series’ 4 episodes have thus far been about Usagi (Kotono Mitsuishi) finding out she’s Sailor Moon, the recruiting of Ami (Hisako Kanemoto) and Rei (Rina Sato) as Sailor Scouts Mercury and Mars respectively, and a team-up episode where they wind up learning more about the nature of the villains they’re facing, the forces of Dark Kingdom.

Watching the show has been a rather unique experience, as I feel it’s my first real exposure to the material. Like all other people my age who had cable, I watched the ’90s version as a kid, but was never super-invested in it; largely, then, Crystal feels like my proper introduction into this particular story (I never read the manga or Codename: Sailor V, which came before it). That might be true for a lot of people, I suspect, but for a lot of anime fans I know personally, it’s the polar opposite.

To this group of fans, it’s more of having the material they loved properly realized in a way they can visibly see. See, while the North American dub–done by DIC Entertainment–was incredibly popular in syndication and on Cartoon Network, it was full of bizarre censorship (like two Scouts who were also lovers, Uranus and Neptune, being called cousins), Westernized name changes and other oddities like educational segments. A full breakdown of the adaptation can be found here.

Crystal, then, can be seen as an attempt to properly show American fans the sort of thing they should’ve gotten back in the day, with modern anime storytelling. Of course, there’s one big risk attached to that. That is, Toei and Viz Media (the new American licensor for Sailor Moon) have to take the chance that old and new fans will check out Crystal rather than the original anime, which is being released uncut and in subtitled Japanese for the first time on Hulu, with two episodes going up every Monday (a ridiculously lavish DVD/Blu-Ray set by Viz, with a brand new, more accurate dub, will be released in the fall). The risk of people flocking to see the better version of the old stuff rather than the brand new stuff is present and, while noteworthy, it doesn’t seem to have affected Crystal‘s reception.

The response to Crystal has been, while not entirely tepid, rather mixed. I mean, a lot of people have seen the show, obviously–the first episode has now been streamed over a million times on Crunchyroll alone–but critical reception has been rather mixed, with many citing the show’s hyperdetailed animation as stiff, particularly in the CGI transformation sequences. For some reviewers, the faithful recreation of Takeuchi’s original art, enormous eyes and all, is also a problem.

Personally, I don’t think the animation is that bad; I actually find it smooth and fluid, although I do find character faces a little stiff. Still, I’m not the target audience here–that would be diehards as well as young kids–and I’m okay with that.

It’s interesting that Crystal is Internet-only, as opposed to airing on a Japanese network firsthand. There are quite a few web-first anime, but most of them tend to be series of shorts, like the somewhat infamous Hetalia. Economically, I understand the impulse; most 20-somethings and kids watch more things online than on TV, after all, and the livestreaming of episodes allows for them to be disseminated quicker among the Internet. But seeing as how web-first programming is usually reserved for programs that wouldn’t stand a chance on regular TV, it’s odd to see a new Sailor Moon show–which is as close as you can get to a sure success–being given this treatment.

Still, this appears to be working so far, so maybe more full-length anime shows will get this kind of treatment. Who’s to say? In the meantime, I’ll keep watching Crystal and taking it all in.

NOTE: This was meant to be posted yesterday, but I’ve been really sick and exhausted, so I had to postpone it. Also, this was meant to be about another one of Morrison’s DC works–which I’m still planning to review–but I didn’t get it done in time. So instead, this.

Source: Wikipedia

One of the things I talked about on Wednesday was about how Morrison’s writing is full of incredibly big ideas, some of which pay off, others don’t. Morrison’s 41-issue tenure on JLA, the Justice League comic that ran from 1997-2006 (with Morrison kicking the book off), is full of ideas that do. Even better, they manage to feel completely true to the spirit of all these iconic characters while incorporating their history and their (then-current) status quo.

I haven’t finished the full run yet–at present, I’m halfway through the famous “Rock of Ages” story–but I like a lot of what I’ve read so far and Morrison’s go-for-broke plotting, along with the dynamic artwork of Howard Porter and Oscar Jimenez, are the reason why.

Accordingly, every issue is full of gigantic, crazy stuff. For example, the first arc has the League facing off against the Hyperclan, a group of proactive superheroes from space who win over the public with their grand gestures but (of course) turn out to have sinister motives. A two-part story, which introduces the one-time DC Universe mainstay of Zauriel, involves Superman, who at the time had electric powers (it’s complicated), wrestling an evil angel named Asmodel who looked like a giant bull.

I repeat: Electric Superman wrestled a bull angel. How do you not want to check that out?

Basically, it’s everything I love about old-school comics–the crazy ideas, the weird stuff just tossed at the reader without any rationalizing other than “because”–combined with that punk rock energy Morrison always has, a reverence for and understanding of these characters and a lot more literary pizazz.

Of course, a comic book writer is only as good as his artist, and Porter (with Jiminez subbing in at some points), delivers the goods in droves. His characters and backgrounds are big. It’s been said that the DC heroes are gods, and Porter underlies that assumption with art that is energetic, bombastic and pleasing. He’s great fun.

If you liked the two Justice League cartoons–my friend at Critical Hit! wrote a great post about them which reminds me I really should get back into those at some point–and you want to know where the go-for-broke stuff came from, this entire run has been collected in trade and is really easy to find. Check it out.

When I was in high school and The Dark Knight came out, like millions of other people, I got excited about Batman. Unlike most people, I actually tried to get into current Batman comics. However, while Warner Bros. had a certified monster hit on their hands, getting millions upon millions of people excited about a guy named Bruce Wayne who dressed up as a bat and punched criminals in the face for the first time or the first time in a long time, DC Comics, their subsidiary that had originated the character had done perhaps the worst possible thing they could do for this moment:

They killed Batman.

Ok, to be fair, he was actually zapped back in time by the Omega Beams of the omnipotent despot Darkseid, but we found that out later. Now, Batman was definitively dead, with former Robin Dick Grayson forced into taking up the mantle instead.

These circumstances were due, I was told, to writer Grant Morrison, who had killed Batman off in the pages of the big “crossover event” of the year, Final Crisis, while simultaneously driving Bats crazy through the psychological torture of the evil Black Glove organization in the concurrent “Batman R.I.P.” storyline in the pages of the eponymous comic. I read both those storylines and came away very, very confused.

Final Crisis was bursting with an insane amount of ideas–the most prominent of which involve the superhero/New God Orion dying and Darkseid finally obtaining the “Anti-Life Equation” by unlocking the components in people’s minds through the Internet and gaining complete control over every sentient being in the universe–but it’s a fevered mess that resolves in a really trippy, goofy way. (I should stress that I haven’t read the story in years, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth).

“Batman R.I.P.” felt similarly muddled and rushed; I felt like I had wandered in late to something. It turns out I had. Beginning with the introduction of Bruce’s biological son, Damien, in the “Batman and Son” storyline, Morrison–across multiple titles and with the help of various artists including Frank Quitely, Cameron Stewart, Andy Kubert and Chris Burnham, among others–embarked on a gigantic story putting Batman through hell and back. One of the big things Morrison stressed was that every Batman story ever written–going all the way back to 1939–had actually happened to the character.

Again, that’s a hell of an idea. The kind of big, showy thing that Morrison–who crossed over into American comics in the 1980s as part of the vaunted “British Invasion,” alongside Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore–has spent his entire career doing. But excised from the whole, “R.I.P.” confused the heck out of me, although I have gone on to read some more of his Batman run and enjoyed it immensely (particularly his amazing Batman & Robin run). Whether I just got bad advice or DC’s marketing department didn’t clarify well enough, I was left cold on Morrison.

But then when I turned 18, I received both volumes of his amazing, transcendent, lovely All-Star Superman for my birthday and fell in love with his reverent-but-not-too-reverent approach to comics history and his optimistic, awe-struck view of the Big Blue Boy Scout. The following year, I asked for his memoir/superhero comics history Supergods.Again, I was swept away by his captivating, bombastic prose and rock-and-roll personality (although his more out-there views I was a little less than sold on). His Action Comics run in DC’s New 52 reboot was something I also enjoyed, and I’m looking forward to his long-awaitedThe Multiversity series when it comes out in trade.

I tell you that rambling to tell you this: if you’re in a similar place where I was with Morrison, you owe it to yourself to check out the Respect Films/ Sequart documentary Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods, released in 2011 and available on Hulu.

Constructed chronologically through several interviews with Morrison himself–shot in several locations, as indicated by the sudden changes in background and outfits he undergoes–as well as his friends and fellow industry pros, Gods is a brisk eighty-five minutes. No particular area of Morrison’s life and career feel shafted. Director Patrick Meaney shoots his subject in straightforward ways, and isn’t afraid to make the images on screen abstract–whether it be a shot of Morrison walking or a strange panel from one of his comics–when Grant’s voiceover goes into the obtuse range.

Meaney and DP Jordan Rennert–who, I must add, are delightful gentlemen in person–construct and compose their talking head shots with maximum clarity. While Morrison is the foremost voice on display here, he’s not the dominant one. Having so much outside perspective allows the viewer some distance from the more hard-to-take anecdotes Morrison offers, such as his claim that a visit from fourth-dimensional beings where he was shown the true nature of the universe inspired his Vertigo series The Invisibles. Conversely, in Supergods, readers had to take Morrison’s claims at face value.

The one fault I have with this movie is something I suspect the filmmakers had no control over. When Morrison’s wife, Kristi, enters the narrative, she’s praised by all who talk about her as an overwhelmingly positive influence on Grant’s life and work (she also acts as his manager). It’s bizarre, then, that she’s never seen outside of photographs and not even interviewed. Maybe she declined to be on camera, which I can understand, but her importance to Morrison that the film stresses is undercut by her absence.

Regardless, this is a well-done independent film and a good documentary that will make you sympathetic to someone who’s a rather polarizing figure in comics culture. It is very much worth your time.

NOTE: As the header says, this is the start of Grant Morrison Week. We’ll be back Friday with a look at one of Morrison’s most famous works.

It’s become sort of a hallmark of the Marvel Studios films to toggle back and forth between using original material and incorporating wholesale storylines from the comics canon. Barring the S.H.I.E.L.D.-heavy connection, Captain America: The Winter Soldier was basically a straight version of the Winter Soldier’s introductory storyline. Iron Man is essentially a feature-length version of the character’s updated origin from the “Extremis” story by Warren Ellis and Adi Granov.

With Guardians of the Galaxy, things are different. Here, writer-director James Gunn–rewriting an earlier script by Nicole Perlman–is taking the incarnation of the team put together by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning in the past few years and giving them a wholly original story to play around in. There’s backstory, sure, but the specifics are brand new.

After a heart-rending prologue in which a young Peter Quill (Wyatt Oleff) loses his mother to cancer and is then abducted by a group of alien thieves called the Ravagers, the present day of the film finds an adult Quill, going by the name “Star-Lord” (Chris Pratt), sashaying and sliding his way across an abandoned alien temple to ’70s music from a Walkman while retrieving a mysterious orb on behalf of his boss/surrogate dad, Yondu (Michael Rooker) so it can be sold for a heavy price. However, he’s accosted by Korath the Pursuer (Djimon Hounsou), who tries to steal the orb from him for his boss, the fanatical Kree warlord Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace).

Quill escapes and tries to sell the orb directly to the buyer on the planet Xandar, home of the Nova Corps. The buyer refuses once he learns that Ronan–who’s threatening to destroy Xandar despite a Kree-Xandarian peace treaty–wants it and Quill winds up being pursued by Gamora (Zoe Saldana), who’s been loaned out to Ronan, along with Nebula (Karen Gillan) as muscle by her adopted father Thanos the “Mad Titan”(Josh Brolin, going uncredited). Gamora, Quill and bounty hunters Rocket Racoon (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel)–who try to capture Quill for the huge bounty Yondu has placed on his head for muscling him out of his share of the orb–all wind up being thrown in jail by the Nova Corps.

There, they run into Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), a morose musclebound giant who dreams of killing Ronan as vengeance for his murdered family. The group reluctantly bands together and breaks out, with Gamora–wanting to break away from the grip of Thanos and Ronan–leading them in a plan to sell the orb to someone else and split the money 5 ways. Of course, things go wrong.

What follows is perhaps one of the best movies of the year. It’s definitely in the top tier of Marvel Studios films–stronger, I’d dare to say, than The Avengers, if not quite as great as Winter Soldier–as well as being one of the best sci-fi/action movies of recent vintage.

It’s a funny thing. Despite coming from a superhero studio, this really isn’t a superhero movie. What it is is perhaps the best example of post-Star Wars SF filmmaking yet. The world and tech is lived in; big, crazy concepts are introduced and mostly brushed aside. In short, it’s easygoing and loose, something that a lot of blockbusters miss.

Key to the film’s joyful, groovy atmosphere is the cast, particularly Pratt. The Lego Movie might’ve been the first sign, but this film proves that without a doubt, he is a goddamn movie star. He’s charismatic, he’s goofy and he can shift to serious when it calls for it. In short, it’s like watching Firefly, but if the cast was one person. Trust me when I say that his work alone sells this movie.

However, he’s not the only draw, cast-wise. Everyone involved does outstanding work, from Pace’s over-the-top villainy as Ronan (which straight up nails the bombast of the character’s original appearances) to the soulful melancholy of Bautista as Drax. Also, all one needs to do is look at any given fight scene with Drax to wonder just why a major movie studio put a pro wrestler in its space movie.

Rocket and Groot, of course, are the big draws and they deliver on all fronts. Cooper–who provided the voice and was filmed gesticulating by the animators for reference, while the role of Rocket on-set was played by Gunn’s brother Sean–nails the wiseass tone of Rocket. And as the vocab-impaired Groot, Diesel turns in what is without a doubt his best performance since The Iron Giant. I’m not ashamed to say that I gasped and nearly cried at his big emotional moment; Diesel is that good.

Unfortunately, as they tend to be in this kind of movie, the women are sidelined. Saldana and Gillan are both great here, don’t get me wrong. But they get the shaft at points and it’s rather annoying, particularly with Nebula; I could sense that there was something we were missing and it kinda stank.

Now I’m not familiar with Gunn’s other work–although Super has been in my Netflix queue for a good long while–but as far as mainstream debuts go, this is a winner. I wrote on Twitter earlier after seeing this movie today that the little kids who see this today will be the George Lucas of tomorrow, creating whole new worlds out of cloth.

Reflecting on that, it seems like James Gunn was one of those kids. This was a long shot for a lot of reasons; the fact that millions upon millions of people now know who the Kree, the Celestials and Rocket Racoon are is mind-blowing. Folks: see this movie. You won’t regret it because there’s very little to regret.

In closing, let me just say that if you’ve already seen this movie and loved it like I do, please consider donating to the ongoing medical expenses and care of Bill Mantlo, the writer who co-created Rocket Racoon in the ’80s. Mantlo, a beloved comics writer, was in a near-fatal hit-and-run accident in 1992 and now requires round-the-clock help in an assisted living facility. You can find out more about his condition here; please consider donating a buck or two his way. Thank you.

I think it’s safe to say at this point that if you have a kid or like cartoons or television in anyway, you’ve heard of Adventure Time. And that show is great and a full-blown cultural phenomenon for a reason. It’s incredible. Never has a cartoon taken such a simple premise–boy and dog wander through a post-apocalyptic wasteland–and turned it into a fully fleshed out world so expansive and real.

But besides Adventure Time , Pendleton Ward has another show to his name. This one is a little more obscure, but just as rewarding. I speak of Bravest Warriors.

Credit: Bravest Warriors Wiki

Bravest Warriors is by Frederator Studios–makers of Adventure Time, Fairly Oddparents and a bunch of other great shows–and is the flagship show of their original YouTube channel, Cartoon Hangover. The channel’s official description calls it the home of cartoons that are “too out there for TV [sic]” and that’s pretty true. None of their projects fit into easy categories to slot on cable, and Warriors is a good example.

With its teen-aged characters, the series is easily aimed at teens, but college-aged kids and adults can get a lot out of it too. The show’s more mature tone, as well as the fact that it doesn’t have any censorship other than what Cartoon Hangover dictates, make it a wild card.

But I get ahead of myself. What’s the story of the show?

Well, it’s the far future and in the city of Neo-Mars, there was a band of heroes called the Courageous Battlers. Two years ago, they all got sucked into another dimension, the See-Through Zone. In their absence, their children have taken up their parents’ stead as adventurers and defenders of peace.

As the Bravest Warriors, leader Chris Kirkman (Alex Walsh), inventor Danny Vasquez (John Omohundro), scientist Wallow (Ian-Jones Quartey) and Lone Girl/warrior Beth Tezuka (Liliana Mumy) travel through space “helping peeps” and righting wrongs. Along the way, they deal with the wacky antics of all sorts of aliens like unofficial team members Catbug (Sam Lavagnino), a childlike extra-dimensional being and the rude, jerkish Impossibear (Michael Leon Woodley) and Beth’s friend Plum (Tara Strong), a merewif–she turns into a mermaid once she hits the water.

Across 2 seasons of YouTube shorts, they deal with every menace from the apocalyptic Aeon Worm to the Hardcore Hill Midgets, while also dealing with the mysterious, wacky Emotion Lord (Breehn Burns), who has a mysterious connection to Chris.

While the concept and characters were created by Ward, due to his involvement with Adventure Time, he left the running of the series to Breehn Burns, famed independent filmmaker and creator of the surrealist webseries Dr. Tran . If you think Adventure Time is trippy, this show will give you a run for your money. I mean, the third episode introduces a holo-john: a bathroom that is also a holodeck.

Burns, who has written and directed every single episode (although he has since stepped down), is an inspired choice for this series. His constant presence–he also voices basically every character that’s not the main four or Catbug or Impossibear–helps ground the series in a consistent viewpoint. It’s a demented, nutsy viewpoint. Yet, it’s also a really authentic, believably teenage viewpoint.

Chris is attracted to Beth and that forms the emotional crux of the series. Underneath the goofy slang and wacky situations, there’s a real heart at the bottom of this show. Being that each episode runs from 5-10 minutes, everything has to be expressed directly and quickly. Burns’ experience with webseries formats helps that work.

Key of course is the wonderful animation. Frederator doesn’t pull any punches; this is as detailed and rich as an episode of Adventure Time. There’s some truly awesome, cool images in there. The fact that the series is willing to turn the reins over to famed animation and comics folk like Ryan North, Noelle Stevenson, Niki Yang and Jhonen Vasquez only solidifies its uniqueness and expressivity.

The core cast ties it all together. Walsh, a virtual unknown, is fantastic as the naive, tentative Chris. Omohundro sells the macho cockiness of Danny. Mumy brings layers and layers to Beth beyond “just the girl.” As the goofy, upbeat Wallow, Quartey, a non-professionnal actor, is a delight. Strong, voice acting goddess, makes Plum an intriguing ingenue.

Impossibear doesn’t show up that much, but Wooley is fun in the role. As the breakout catchphrase machine, Catbug, Lavagnino–a little kid–is silly and fun and the episode “Catbug’s Away Team” is one of my favorites.

The show can easily be binged in an hour or two and is very much worth your time. If you want a great cartoon that doesn’t speak to any one audience and can do whatever it wants because the Internet, then check it out.

If you like it, I strongly suggest checking out the tie-in comic from Kaboom, which tells an alternate, but equally fascinating, story of the characters–for example, Plum has a second brain and personality belonging to an ancient woman and switches beneath the two seemingly at random.

Basically, if Adventure Time is a fantasy-loving kid, Bravest Warriors is that kid’s SF-loving older brother. Check it out. You’ll love the moop out of it.

So this past weekend was Botcon, the annual Transformers convention. Given that the new film, Age Of Extinction, hits today, there was naturally a lot more excitement than usual. Judging from the reports I’ve read, that excitement was due and well-deserved (barring the occasional ugly snafu).

I couldn’t attend–not that I ever have been able to–and while some friends of mine held their own “Notcon” to make up for it, I stayed home and weathered the death of a close family member.

In between the various businesses of grief, I found comfort and escape in rereading the opening arc of the always-excellent More Than Meets The Eye, one of the two current ongoing Transformers comics, and reading the prequel to this current era of Transformers comics, the 2010 miniseries Last Stand Of The Wreckers.

Essentially, this is an action movie in comics form. Taking place after the All Hail Megatron event, which saw the Decepticons become rulers of Earth after destroying San Francisco, the story opens with Autobot Springer recruiting four new members–war hero Rotorstorm, Optimus Prime wannabe Pyro, gun nut Guzzle and genius weapons inventor Ironfist–to join the Wreckers, basically the Autobots’ answer to Seal Team 6 and Blackwater.

Their mission? Take back the Autobot prison planet Garrus-9, which has been ruled for 3 years by the sadistic Decepticon renegade Overlord. The Wreckers, plus human stowaway Verity Carlo ( a holdover from previous Transformers comics by IDW), land on the planet. But what they find is worse than they could’ve ever imagined…

The wonderful thing about this series–and there are many–is that it mashes up familiar characters (Springer and fellow Wreckers Kup and Perceptor date back to the ’80s) with the ultra-obscure (all the new guys are European exclusive toys who had never been used in fiction before). Writers James Roberts, currently writing More Than Meets The Eye, and Nick Roche (who also draws with Guido Guidi) bring these disparate types together and make them all fully fleshed out, interesting characters.
For example, Ironfist is a die-hard Wreckers fanboy who writes famous stories about the team under a pseudonym. That’s pretty neat.

I should also add this story is full of carnage. Bots die left and right and far from being meaningless, Roberts and Roche make us all care. That’s not easy to do.

Key to it all is Roche’s and Guidi’s art. The two mesh together beautifully and, with the amazing coloring of Josh Burcham, create vibrant, poppy artwork that could easily be the basis for an animated film.

I’d highly recommend this storyto anyone with even a minor interest in Transformers. No prior knowledge is required. I’d especially recommend getting the deluxe hardcover. It has all the covers, character profiles, a wonderful short story written by Roberts and supplemental sequel comics (full disclosure: my friend lettered two of them).
Even if you removed the giant robots, this is a solid military scifi story
If Roberts and Roche were to work on an original work, it’d be as great as what we see here. Check it out.